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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Politics & government fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about politics & government. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

12,745 published reviews in this topic

dpaPolitics & government

Cette vidéo montre un enfant dire à Jill Biden de la fermer.

Publisher’s rating: Non. La vidéo en question a été altérée. Une piste audio d'une vidéo distincte a été ajoutée pour arriver à ce montage trompeur.

The video appears to show Jill Biden speaking to children in a classroom, followed by an off-screen child telling her to “shut up.” The review traces the footage to the Bidens’ visit to Eliot-Hine Middle School in Washington on August 28, 2023. It says the original, longer footage shows Jill and Joe Biden talking with pupils, including Jill Biden discussing her experience as a teacher; the visit ends without the confrontation suggested by the circulating clip. The review describes two checks that address the clip’s provenance. A reverse-image search located the context for the Jill Biden footage, and a search using English keywords for “shut up,” “student,” and “video” led to the separate source of the shouted audio: a school video shared in 2019, in which a pupil interrupts a teacher. The review concludes that this audio was added to the school-visit footage. Thus, the viral edit combines real images of Jill Biden with sound from a different video; it does not document a child addressing her in that way.

dpaPolitics & government

Obama stal zijn social securitynummer van een dode Franse migrant.

Publisher’s rating: Nee, Obama deelt zijn socialezekerheidsnummer niet met een overleden Franse migrant. Dit is een gerucht uit de oude doos dat geen enkele basis in de realiteit heeft. Jean Ludwig's dood in 1981 was gekend bij de Socialezekerheidsadministratie en zijn SSN verschilde van dat van Obama.

The review examines an online allegation that former U.S. president Barack Obama used a Social Security number belonging to Jean Paul Ludwig, a French migrant who had died. The allegation, as described in the article, was that Ludwig’s death had not been reported, leaving his number available for Obama to use; it also invoked Obama’s grandmother and Aissa Wayne, daughter of actor John Wayne. The review reports that the claim was a revival of an older rumor, not a newly documented discovery. To test the central premise, the review says the U.S. government maintained an index through 2014 of deaths reported to the Social Security Administration, accessible through genealogy websites. It searched for the Jean Ludwig described in the rumor as born in 1890 and deceased in Hawaii, and reports that he appears in the index as having died in 1981. That evidence undercuts the assertion that his death went unreported. The article also compares the number endings at the heart of the allegation: Ludwig’s recorded number ends in 8722, whereas the number circulated online as Obama’s ends in 4425. The article therefore finds they are not the same. It cautions that Obama’s exact number has not been confirmed with complete certainty and says fact-checkers infer a number beginning with 042; that qualification does not change the mismatch between the two endings cited in the rumor.

Fact Crescendo CambodiaPolitics & government

ប័ណ្ណ​សញ្ជាតិ​បរទេស​របស់​លោក ហ៊ុន ម៉ាណែត, លោក នេត សាវឿន និង​លោក អូន ព័ន្ធមុនីរ័ត្ន

Publisher’s rating: False

The review examined social-media posts circulating in late August that depicted documents with photographs of Hun Manet, Neth Savoeun, and Aun Ponnmoniroth. The posts implied that the documents showed the three Cambodian officials had obtained foreign citizenship, and specifically described them as identity cards granted by the Cyprus government. The review says this circulation followed the formation of the Hun Manet-led government. To check the images, Fact Crescendo Cambodia reports using Google Reverse Image Search. It says the cards bearing Neth Savoeun’s and Aun Ponnmoniroth’s photographs matched examples on a website selling scannable fake IDs. The review points to shared registration numbers, expiry dates, and birthdates on the cards, and says the typefaces differed from other cards on that site. It also reports that the supposed U.S. passport bearing Hun Manet’s photograph was digitally edited, tracing the underlying image to a sample passport on the U.S. Department of Commerce website. The review distinguishes the fabricated images from a separate point about the two senior officials: it says Reuters had previously reported that Neth Savoeun and Aun Ponnmoniroth obtained Cypriot citizenship. That reported citizenship does not authenticate the circulated cards. The review’s conclusion is that the identity documents shown in the images were fake.

Fact CrescendoPolitics & government

Claim: Seeman not commented this about his wife and abortion

Publisher’s rating: ஃபேக்ட் கிரஸண்டோ ரேட்டிங்: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media post presented with a Thanthi TV logo. It attributed to Naam Tamilar Katchi leader Seeman a statement that his wife conceived through artificial methods, followed by a question challenging the allegation that he had caused seven abortions. The review says readers sent the post to Fact Crescendo for verification and that people were sharing it as genuine because of the logo. The setting was actress Vijayalakshmi’s complaint against Seeman. According to the review, she had alleged that he married and deceived her, and had also said he made her undergo abortions seven times. The viral post purported to show Seeman responding to that allegation at a press conference; it was not simply a general statement about his wife or abortion. Fact Crescendo reports that it checked with the administrator of Thanthi TV’s digital division, who confirmed that the channel had not published the purported report. The review also says it provided the full details of Seeman’s interview concerning the matter. On that basis, it concludes that the circulating post falsely attributed the quoted statement to him. The excerpt does not identify the date or venue of the interview, or provide the interview itself, so those details cannot be independently described from the supplied evidence.

Soch Fact CheckPolitics & government

Instagram user @Zarishkayy says a document proves that the United Nations (UN) plans an “end of the family system” and intends to force parents to give up their children so that the “kids belong to the state” through movements such as for the rights of the transgender community. The document contains a list of other goals as well that indicate the UN is working to deprive people of their freedom and privacy in a bid to control the world.

Publisher’s rating: False